Nando’s (Not) Peri Peri Sauce

I bought some FreshSweetcorn yesterday in the supermarket, I really do need some pointers on choosing good Corn because despite checking the colour of the silk (still golden) and piercing a kernel (milky stuff came out) when I cooked this last night the Corn was still a bit strange, I boiled it for a few minutes & then dry fried it in a really hot griddle pan for another couple of minutes to get it slightly blackened so it wasn’t over cooked or under cooked. I am yet to purchase a good Sweet Corn here 😦

Never the less I ate it simply because the sauce I made to go with it was delicious & I felt like eating something spicy!

I have a fridge drawer full of Lemons (Green ones!) and nothing to do with them, they were a present freshly picked off a tree so I don’t want them to go to waste. I started to think maybe I could make some Lemon Puree and save it in freezer cubes for adding to things when needed. Do you think there are any recipes on-line for Lemon Puree? The answer is NO but there are lots of people asking for one.. So here is mine

Lemon Puree

Using a Micro Plane grater remove zest from Lemons & save for another recipe- I personally recommend you make Limoncello! (I will post my recipe for this later)

Peel what is left off the skins from the Lemons & discard (or throw on the compost heap)

Quarter Lemons & remove seeds

Put Lemons into your blender & pulverise!

You now have Lemon Puree which can be sweetened if necessary or used in savoury dishes or cocktails!

Lemon Puree

NB I blended my Lemons with their skin on as I am lazy- its fine but next time I would remove the skin 🙂

Anyway whilst browsing for Lemon Puree recipes I happened upon Nando’sPeri Peri Extra Hot Sauce ingredients list and one of these happened to be Lemon Puree (strange I know) so with my Fresh Corn I thought it would be nice to make some of their hot sauce!

They list the following ingredients: Water, Vinegar, Lemon Puree, Salt, Onion Puree, Serrano Chillies, African Birds Eye Chillies, Sunflower Oil, Cayenne Pepper, Paprika, Stabiliser, Garlic. Unfortunately I only had one type of fresh Chilli Pepper and it has no name on the packet but I used these and they worked well, surely only a Chilli connoisseur can pick out the flavours of ‘Serrano’ and ‘African Birds Eye’ Chillies.. Nando’s use Xanthan Gum to keep their sauce both fluid & stable but I didn’t think I needed to go to quite that extreme.

Blend Lemon, Onion & Garlic till they are a puree- add a few tsp of Water if the mixture gets stuck
Add Red Chillies, Salt, Spices & Oil, blend
Add Vinegar, blend
If the sauce seems too thick add a few Tbs of Water to make it pourable (I added 3 Tbs)

Mix & Blend

Finished Sauce

Realistically its more the colour of their Medium sauce (I know this as I have Medium 🙂 ) if you wanted to get that dark red/brown colour & super hot heat I think you would need to use some Dried Red Chillies- I have dried Red Birds Eye chillies in the kitchen (the ones needed for TRUE Peri Peri) so I think I’ll have a little experiment with them this weekend!

If you don’t want to taste any Lemon in the sauce I recommend halving the amount I used as it has quite a Lemony kick

If you are using this as a marinade (as I am tonight) but don’t use it all up you can save the rest in the fridge for a few weeks

You can mix it with Mayonnaise and make Not Peri Peri Mayonnaise A la Nando’s!